i call an end to my unpublicised sabbatical.
15 days without posting an entry has done my mind some good. at times, tempted to, and at others, distracted enough not to post. i have travelled, i have read novels, i have done different things these last two weeks... i have done things differently these last two weeks.
i read penelope lively's the photograph. it reminded me of the story i wrote about the ghost who tries to write his memories down but fails again and again.
gabriel garcia marquez's one hundred years of solitude was brilliant. never before has the closing line of a novel made me swell inside and take a deep breath before putting the book down. it feels odd not holding the book in my hands, and i secretly wish that it was two hundred years of solitude or maybe even a thousand years. these are short stories woven together like a quilt of contrasting patches, of people of a seed who grew into geraniums, grapevines, oak trees and garden weeds. it's life, but not as we know it to be.
speaking of which, the trip to kuala lumpur and genting over the national day weekend started out like the amazing race and ended up like an episode of survivor : immigration. it was an enjoyable vacation, if i can even call it that. if the purpose of a vacation is to get some rest, then this was an anti-vacation. slumber was relegated to the status of 'that thing we do when we've run out of other things to do'. but being bleary-eyed half the time means more laughter, despite what, in retrospect, appears to be a motley of jokes and gags made in poor taste.
in the words of my father, 1.2 million singaporeans were in malaysia over the weekend. that many huh? as they say in economics, lies, damned lies and statistics. there were enough people conspicuously mulling about there to convince me that he might not have been that much off the actual figure. the queues were endless, the traffic was pre-apocalyptical and there was a crying baby. there is always a crying baby.
anyway, i'm back now.
